Effectiveness of Migraine Specific Psychotherapy on measurements of a Patents’ Psychological Problems

Aims and background: Patients with migraine have been shown to have a high rate of psychological comorbidities such as depression, anxiety and stress. The aim of the paper was to study the effectiveness of migraine specific psychotherapy on the patents’ ratings of their psychological problems. In this semi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest control group, 30 migraine patients were selected from Khatam-ol-Anbia hospital in Zahedan and randomly assigned into an experimental or a control group. The experimental group received special psychotherapy for migraine patients during 8 sessions of 2.5 hours each. The control group did not receive any intervention during the study period. Experiment and control groups completed the Depression Anxiety Stress scale )DASS_21( before and after the intervention. Data was analyzed by MANCOVA test using SPSS18. Findings: The results of the data analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of depression, anxiety and stress before and after treatment (p < 0.001). Therefore, the migraine specific psychotherapy was effective in decreasing the measurements of the of patents’ psychological problems. The migraine specific psychotherapy is effective in reducing psychological problem scores of migraine patents. Therefore, it is recommended as an effective therapy to improve mental health